Video: iPhone 8 Plus A11 Bionic versus iPhone 7 Plus A10 Fusion performance test

AppleInsider · October 2, 2017 12:48AM

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus come loaded with Apple's new A11 Bionic processor. AppleInsider takes a look at everything it brings to the table, and how it compares to the A10 Fusion from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

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engdev · October 2, 2017 2:42AM

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

edited October 2017

gmgravytrain · October 2, 2017 2:56AM

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

magman1979 · October 2, 2017 4:24AM

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

engdev · October 2, 2017 5:31AM

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

hammerd2 · October 2, 2017 7:53AM

So, basically the same GPU performance as the 7's taking into account the die shrink from 16-10nm. Rather than being world beating or ground breaking this 'entirely Apple designed GPU' looks VERY similar indeed to the PowerVR GPU in the 7's.

Maybe they should have licensed Furian 😂

foggyhill · October 2, 2017 8:42AM

EngDev said:

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

I put my benchmark right in my damn post, go there yourself first. Me too I can cherry pick things.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-8-benchmarks-fastest-phone,review-4676.html

yeah, a different benchmark gave a different result. Well, good for you huh,

seems encoding 4 times slower you'll have to wait for the screen actually show anything from your slow as ass SOCs though...

edited October 2017

foggyhill · October 2, 2017 8:45AM

hammerd2 said:

So, basically the same GPU performance as the 7's taking into account the die shrink from 16-10nm. Rather than being world beating or ground breaking this 'entirely Apple designed GPU' looks VERY similar indeed to the PowerVR GPU in the 7's.

Maybe they should have licensed Furian 😂

Depends on which benchmark you look at 3D mark has it beating down on everything else, but hey, pick the benchmark to fit your preordained "feels".

benji888 · October 2, 2017 12:12PM

Let’s see some side by side real world tests with AR and VR apps ...iPhone 7+ vs 8+, iPhone 8+ vs flagship Android. Maybe even iPad 10.5 vs android tablet.

tipoo · October 2, 2017 1:13PM

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

GPUs being massively paralel devices, it's harder to be a standout there then on CPUs, which are much more complex to scale up.

Machine complexity goes up exponentially with width, which is why both Intel and Apple stopped at about a 6-wide machine, while the rest of mobile fare is still 4-wide. To get the extra steps would be a near doubling in core size for everyone else.

GPUs on the other hand, need more performance? Scale up the execution units and bandwidth and graphics performance tends to scale with it, so long as nothing is bottlenecking.

It will be interesting to see what they can do scaling their custom GPU now though. I'd love to see it on a Mac for further testing!

muthuk_vanalingam · October 2, 2017 1:37PM

tipoo said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

GPUs being massively paralel devices, it's harder to be a standout there then on CPUs, which are much more complex to scale up.

Machine complexity goes up exponentially with width, which is why both Intel and Apple stopped at about a 6-wide machine, while the rest of mobile fare is still 4-wide. To get the extra steps would be a near doubling in core size for everyone else.

GPUs on the other hand, need more performance? Scale up the execution units and bandwidth and graphics performance tends to scale with it, so long as nothing is bottlenecking.

It will be interesting to see what they can do scaling their custom GPU now though. I'd love to see it on a Mac for further testing!

Having said all of that, Apple is still leading in GPU performance as well. GSMArena (http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_8_plus-review-1662p5.php) runs many benchmarks to assess the performance and A11 comes out on TOP on ALL of those benchmarks!!! Not sure about the authenticity of the links provided by @EngDev here.

Edit: Something seems to be wrong with the link provided by @EngDev. There is no way A11 is behind Kirin 960 in Huawei Honor 9. Even A9X (not A10X) is ahead of A11 in that list. Definitely something wrong with the benchmark suite. Based on the GSMArena reviews that I have read, the GPU performance is in the below order as far as I know.

1. A11

2. A10X

3. A10

4. A9X

5. SD 835

6. Exynos 8895

7. Kirin 960

8. SD 820/821

9. A9

10. Exynos 8890

edited October 2017

melgross · October 2, 2017 1:58PM

hammerd2 said:

So, basically the same GPU performance as the 7's taking into account the die shrink from 16-10nm. Rather than being world beating or ground breaking this 'entirely Apple designed GPU' looks VERY similar indeed to the PowerVR GPU in the 7's.

Maybe they should have licensed Furian 😂

Well, you guys don’t really understand this, do you? The previous GPU from Imagination, which, according to anandtech’s extensive tests, which are the only really believable ones out there, said that Apple’s technology was pushing Imaninations out for two years. But, this new GPU uses 3 cores, whereas the older one, based on Imagination’s used 6 cores.

so 30% better performance from half the cores, despite what you might think, is pretty damn good.

melgross · October 2, 2017 2:02PM

EngDev said:

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

I don’t even know what that junk you posted means. One score, for what exactly? And you can’t compare Geekbench 4.0 scores to Geekbench 3.1 scores.

edited October 2017

tipoo · October 2, 2017 2:29PM

melgross said:

hammerd2 said:

So, basically the same GPU performance as the 7's taking into account the die shrink from 16-10nm. Rather than being world beating or ground breaking this 'entirely Apple designed GPU' looks VERY similar indeed to the PowerVR GPU in the 7's.

Maybe they should have licensed Furian ߘ⦬t;/div>
Well, you guys don’t really understand this, do you? The previous GPU from Imagination, which, according to anandtech’s extensive tests, which are the only really believable ones out there, said that Apple’s technology was pushing Imaninations out for two years. But, this new GPU uses 3 cores, whereas the older one, based on Imagination’s used 6 cores.

so 30% better performance from half the cores, despite what you might think, is pretty damn good.

Until we know the die area (scaled to the fab) of the GPU, the core count really doesn't matter, it's not like a CPU where doing more with fewer cores is almost always preferable.

Each GPU manufacturer counts cores differently, Intel has 8 shaders to an EU, AMD has 64 ALUs in a Vega CU, Nvidia has 128 ALUs in a SM...In all likelihood Apple changed the ratio of ALUs per "core", as increasing the performance while actually having less ALUs is unlikely. They're just sorting them into larger groups, one front end dispatching to more ALUs. Would potentially have better performance per millimeter, but not to the point where it's like 3 cores is necessarily half the size of 6 (again, scaling things to be even between the two fabs)

It's a great GPU, mind, but "more performance with half the cores" is misunderstanding how GPUs work, it's the ALU count per core and in total that will be the big question.

edited October 2017

ericthehalfbee · October 2, 2017 2:49PM

melgross said:

hammerd2 said:

So, basically the same GPU performance as the 7's taking into account the die shrink from 16-10nm. Rather than being world beating or ground breaking this 'entirely Apple designed GPU' looks VERY similar indeed to the PowerVR GPU in the 7's.

Maybe they should have licensed Furian 😂

Well, you guys don’t really understand this, do you? The previous GPU from Imagination, which, according to anandtech’s extensive tests, which are the only really believable ones out there, said that Apple’s technology was pushing Imaninations out for two years. But, this new GPU uses 3 cores, whereas the older one, based on Imagination’s used 6 cores.

so 30% better performance from half the cores, despite what you might think, is pretty damn good.

Not to mention the reduction in power consumption. Sounds like a damn impressive effort.

engdev · October 2, 2017 4:32PM

foggyhill said:

EngDev said:

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

I put my benchmark right in my damn post, go there yourself first. Me too I can cherry pick things.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/iphone-8-benchmarks-fastest-phone,review-4676.html

yeah, a different benchmark gave a different result. Well, good for you huh,
seems encoding 4 times slower you'll have to wait for the screen actually show anything from your slow as ass SOCs though...

The benchmarks I posted are 3DMark's newest test benchmarks for mobile devices and the most recent benchmark from GFXBench that's available for both Android/iOS. Ice Storm in the link you provided only tests OpenGL ES 2.0 performance. Sling Shot tests for OpenGL ES 3.1 as it's their most recent and relevant test.

The discussion was about graphics performance, I know, I know, it's a lot for you to follow.

engdev · October 2, 2017 4:36PM

muthuk_vanalingam said:

tipoo said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

GPUs being massively paralel devices, it's harder to be a standout there then on CPUs, which are much more complex to scale up.

Machine complexity goes up exponentially with width, which is why both Intel and Apple stopped at about a 6-wide machine, while the rest of mobile fare is still 4-wide. To get the extra steps would be a near doubling in core size for everyone else.

GPUs on the other hand, need more performance? Scale up the execution units and bandwidth and graphics performance tends to scale with it, so long as nothing is bottlenecking.

It will be interesting to see what they can do scaling their custom GPU now though. I'd love to see it on a Mac for further testing!

Having said all of that, Apple is still leading in GPU performance as well. GSMArena (http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_8_plus-review-1662p5.php) runs many benchmarks to assess the performance and A11 comes out on TOP on ALL of those benchmarks!!! Not sure about the authenticity of the links provided by @EngDev here.
Edit: Something seems to be wrong with the link provided by @EngDev. There is no way A11 is behind Kirin 960 in Huawei Honor 9. Even A9X (not A10X) is ahead of A11 in that list. Definitely something wrong with the benchmark suite. Based on the GSMArena reviews that I have read, the GPU performance is in the below order as far as I know.
1. A11
2. A10X
3. A10
4. A9X
5. SD 835
6. Exynos 8895
7. Kirin 960
8. SD 820/821
9. A9
10. Exynos 8890

These are the official websites for Futuremark's 3DMark and GFXBench. They're as about as authentic as it gets.

Do keep in mind these are OFFSCREEN benchmarks and keep the same resolution regardless of the display.

engdev · October 2, 2017 4:38PM

melgross said:

EngDev said:

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

I don’t even know what that junk you posted means. One score, for what exactly? And you can’t compare Geekbench 4.0 scores to Geekbench 3.1 scores.

Junk? They're the official websites for Futuremark and GFXBench.

Why are you bringing up Geekbench?

muthuk_vanalingam · October 2, 2017 5:14PM

EngDev said:

muthuk_vanalingam said:

tipoo said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

GPUs being massively paralel devices, it's harder to be a standout there then on CPUs, which are much more complex to scale up.

Machine complexity goes up exponentially with width, which is why both Intel and Apple stopped at about a 6-wide machine, while the rest of mobile fare is still 4-wide. To get the extra steps would be a near doubling in core size for everyone else.

GPUs on the other hand, need more performance? Scale up the execution units and bandwidth and graphics performance tends to scale with it, so long as nothing is bottlenecking.

It will be interesting to see what they can do scaling their custom GPU now though. I'd love to see it on a Mac for further testing!

Having said all of that, Apple is still leading in GPU performance as well. GSMArena (http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_8_plus-review-1662p5.php) runs many benchmarks to assess the performance and A11 comes out on TOP on ALL of those benchmarks!!! Not sure about the authenticity of the links provided by @EngDev here.
Edit: Something seems to be wrong with the link provided by @EngDev. There is no way A11 is behind Kirin 960 in Huawei Honor 9. Even A9X (not A10X) is ahead of A11 in that list. Definitely something wrong with the benchmark suite. Based on the GSMArena reviews that I have read, the GPU performance is in the below order as far as I know.
1. A11
2. A10X
3. A10
4. A9X
5. SD 835
6. Exynos 8895
7. Kirin 960
8. SD 820/821
9. A9
10. Exynos 8890

These are the official websites for Futuremark's 3DMark and GFXBench. They're as about as authentic as it gets.

Do keep in mind these are OFFSCREEN benchmarks and keep the same resolution regardless of the display.

Thanks for sharing further details. However there are few things that seem to be NOT right in the FutureMark scores. Btw, I do understand OFFSCREEN scores pretty well, having read GSMArena for quite a long time.

1. A9X powered iPad Pro at #9 AND iPad Pro 9.7 at #16, with A11 powered iPhone 8 Plus sandwiched in between them at #10. How do you explain that?

2. A11 powered iPhone 8 at #29, behind MANY SD 820/821 devices, BUT another A11 powered iPhone 8 Plus (at #10) above ALL of 821/820 devices and about half of SD 835 devices as well. How do you explain this?

3. A9 powered iPad 9.7 at #52, but A10 powered iPhone 7 at #59???

4. Kirin 960 powered Honor 9 at #19 (eclipsing SD 820/821/A10/Exynos 8890), then next entry for same Kirin 960 SoC at #61, #62 and #65 for Mate 9 variants/Honor v9 (behind the same SD 820/821/Exynos 8890 SoCs). How does it make sense????

Considering the above anomalies, is this really an OFFSCREEN test? Even if it is ONSCREEN test, it does NOT make any sense with iPads having higher scores than iPhones with SAME SoCs. In simple words, this FutureMark scores do NOT make any sense whatsoever.

in GFXBench 1440p Manhattan 3.1.1 benchmark scores, I do see A11 powered iPhone 8 and 8 plus above SD 835 powered devices. I don't see it behind SD 835. A10X at top, and right behind comes A11. So not sure if we both are looking at the same scores.

muthuk_vanalingam · October 2, 2017 5:25PM

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

I don't think iPhone's GPU is behind Qualcomm's. GSMArena runs benchmarks across multiple devices, and Apple's GPUs have topped the charts in the last 4 years as far as I remember, with Qualcomm's SoCs taking over the lead in the subsequent year's new SoCs. And this year SD 835 barely caught up with A10. So from next year onwards, it is doubtful if Qualcomm will be able to beat 6 month old SoC from Apple even with their newer SoC. And the lead that Apple has over QC and other competitors will only grow wider in future.

tmay · October 3, 2017 1:09PM

EngDev said:

magman1979 said:

EngDev said:

The graphics seems to be well behind the CPU, at least compared to the competition. Both those GFXBench scores and 3DMark scores aren't far off from this year's Snapdragon or Exynos. In some cases they're even behind.

I'm curious to see if Apple can push that further in future chips now that the entire graphics portion is in-house.

gmgravytrain said:

Yes, the iPhone's GPU is definitely behind the Android competition as far as the benchmarks tell. I'm not sure how much this means in the real world. It definitely helps Android devices in terms of bragging rights. I don't know why the iPhone's GPU is weaker than Qualcomm's Snapdragon GPU. I'm sure Apple will be able to fix that eventually but if it's not going to help iPhone sales, then it probably isn't even worth the effort to have a slightly better GPU which most consumers won't even notice.

And the Android BS pushers have arrived right on queue...

Put down your Tiki Torch and go look at the benchmarks for yourself.

Source 1, 2

Step away from those crazy benchmarks!

Here's someone to Androidsplain why Apple has that A Series performance advantage;

http://www.androidauthority.com/why-are-apples-chips-faster-than-qualcomms-gary-explains-802738/

Video: iPhone 8 Plus A11 Bionic versus iPhone 7 Plus A10 Fusion performance test

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